A Lesson in Authentic Voice and Ownership

. . . Services Set for Aug. 31 in Detroit

400+ Outlets Editorialize About Press Freedom

Rhetoric Aside, Inclusion in Hollywood Still Elusive

. . . At AAJA, ‘Nobody Wanted to Exit the Theater’

Pentagon Spokeswoman Accused of Misusing Staff

. . . Reporters Speak of Retaliation Over Stories

Writer Asks Honesty about ‘Racism’ Toward Whites

New Puerto Rico Death Toll Gets Scant Attention

O’Brien Turns Diversity Question Back on CNN

Short Takes

A Lesson in Authentic Voice and Ownership

“At the first Unity convention, bringing together minority journalism organizations in Atlanta in 1994, I conducted a writing workshop,” Roy Peter Clark, who teaches writing at the Poynter Institute, wrote Wednesday for Poynter.

“Later, I was told it took second place in an informal contest for the best workshop title. The winner came from a Native American panel: ‘What It Feels Like to be a Mascot.’ My runner-up title was ‘What I Learned About Writing From Listening to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.’

“I played live versions of some of my favorite R&B songs, with lessons along the way about the rhythm of sentences and the voice of the writer. I played a recording of the Otis version of ‘Respect’ and was surprised to see how few in the audience had ever heard it before. Then I played ‘Aretha’ and, yes, there was dancing in the aisles.

“What Aretha and her team had accomplished is something in all creative arts we call ‘ownership.’ Taking ownership in the wrong way (Michael Bolton trying to out-soul Percy Sledge in ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’) can lead to accusations of cultural appropriation — a nice euphemism for stealing. It’s complicated. Pat Boone did sound like he was ripping off Little Richard with ‘Tutti Frutti.’ But Elvis, to me (and to James Brown), sounded like he was delivering the goods.

“One of the most soulful songs ever recorded was the Otis version of ‘Try a Little Tenderness.’ Its gentle beginning and its raucous gospel crescendo offer no evidence that the song was a standard performed by Bing Crosby in 1933. Otis took ownership. He owned it. He ‘made it his own’ in the Randy Jackson cliché of ‘American Idol.’

“This is one of the most important lessons for young journalists and writers everywhere: An idea is not a story. An assignment is not a story. A topic is not a story. It may take a while — quite a while — but the hard work of the writing process eventually transforms something vague into something focused.

“Once that focus is discovered — in an exploratory draft, a lead, a nut graph, a theme, a kicker — it can be rendered in the authentic voice of the writer. ‘That story sounded like you,’ a friendly reader told me, and it would be hard to find a better compliment.

“The other lesson for writers from Otis, Aretha and many other artists, going back to Shakespeare, is that the same text can be delivered to different audiences at the same time with different effects. . . .”

. . . Services Set for Aug. 31 in Detroit

“Aretha Franklin will be laid to rest at Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery following an Aug. 31 funeral at Greater Grace Temple on the city’s west side, her family told the Free Press Friday via a spokesperson,” Brian McCollum wrote for the Detroit Free Press.

However, family spokeswoman Gwendolyn Quinn told Journal-isms it was too soon to discuss arrangements for media coverage. She urged that media inquiries be directed to her at gwendolynquinn (at) aol.com.

McCollum continued, “The funeral will follow a public viewing Aug. 28-29 at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Midtown, where Franklin will lie in state. The viewing will run 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day.

“Greater Grace, which seats about 4,000, has been the site of funerals for many notable Detroit figures, including Rosa Parks, Marcus Belgrave and the Four Tops’ Levi Stubbs.

“The funeral, at 10 a.m. Aug. 31, will be limited to family members, friends and selected guests, and is expected to draw dignitaries, musicians and other high-profile figures from around the world. . . .”

Meanwhile, as the major broadcast networks and cable’s TV One marked Franklin’s passing with news and documentary programming, Black Entertainment Television, under Scott Mills, new president of BET Networks, went back to its roots, showing a music video marathon.

“Today, BET Networks celebrates the life and legacy of Aretha Franklin across all platforms,” a Thursday announcement said. “BET preempted its originally scheduled programming today at Noon ET to pay tribute to the life of music icon Aretha Franklin with a marathon of the prolific artist’s videos across four channels on BET Soul, BET Jams, BET Hip Hop and BET Her. The Network will further honor the ‘Queen of [S]oul’ at our upcoming Black Girls Rock! show airing in September. . . .”

• Tracy Brown, Los Angeles Times: That time Aretha Franklin called the L.A. Times to explain what ‘TCB’ from ‘Respect’ means
• Kelley L. Carter, the Undefeated: Aretha Franklin, 1942-2018: long live the Queen of Soul
• Angela Davis with Amy Goodman, “Democracy Now!”: Aretha Franklin Offered to Post Bail for Me, Saying “Black People Will Be Free” (video)
• Detroit Free Press coverage
• Detroit News coverage
• Nikki Giovanni, YouTube: “Poem for Aretha” (Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen) (video)
• Renée Graham, Boston Globe: All praise is due to the Queen of Soul
• dream hampton, NPR: ‘Black People Will Be Free’: How Aretha Lived The Promise Of Detroit
• Kristen Hare, Poynter Institute: Front pages around the world pay tribute to Aretha Franklin: ‘Farewell to our Queen’
• Michael P. Hill, newscaststudio.com: Networks serve up ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T’ for Aretha Franklin
• Françoise Mouly, New Yorker: “The Queen of Soul” (After Charles White’s “Folksinger”), by Kadir Nelson
• Mark Steiner with Khalilah M. Harris and Ericka Blount Danois, “The Real News”: Aretha! Unapologetically Black, Unapologetically Woman (video), followed by Don Lemon’s interviews with Gladys Knight and Smokey Robinson on CNN.

400+ Outlets Editorialize About Press Freedom

“At the end of a long day, Nancy Ancrum, editorial page editor of The Miami Herald, got a note from a former colleague asking why would she sign on with all those newspapers to push for freedom of the press,” David Beard wrote Thursday for the Poynter Institute.

“Her former colleague, reflecting other naysayers on Thursday’s united editorial effort, asked: Isn’t that exactly what Donald Trump wants, so he can scapegoat the media further? You’re not going to change the minds of Trump fans, she was told.

“Ancrum, whose paper is one of about 411 outlets publishing editorials today urging the preservation of America’s free press, says she responded decisively.

“ ‘This initiative is not designed to change the minds of the most rabid Trump supporters,’ Ancrum tells me, hours before deadline Wednesday. ‘This is for people who take the First Amendment for granted, who must be more engaged … no matter where they fall on the political spectrum.’

“Predictably, the president criticized the effort on Twitter, calling it ‘collusion’ — a term he has faced in an investigation into his presidential campaign’s ties with Russia before the 2016 election . . .”

Alex Kingsbury, deputy Ideas editor of the Boston Globe, which initiated the joint news media effort, wrote Friday, “It’s impossible not to glance through the collection of editorials assembled by more than 400 news outlets this week and not notice the vibrant collage it provides of the journalism profession in 2018.

“These essays are, above all, deeply passionate. They are written by men and women who have answered a calling, a public service, and continue at it, regardless of the financial pressures, the technological changes, and the political cross-currents that buffet them daily. More than 60 percent of the industry’s jobs have vanished in the past quarter-century. . . .”

The Globe received a threatening telephone call that was taken seriously by local and federal authorities, according to an email sent by a facilities manager to other tenants at the newspaper’s headquarters, axios.com reported Friday.

Meanwhile, Madeline Purdue, editor in chief of the Nevada Sagebrush at the University of Nevada at Reno, told Adam Harris, writing Aug. 9 in the Atlantic, that “there is a higher interest among my peers in not only reading the news and being up to date on current events, but also pursuing a career in journalism.”

Harris also wrote, “Columbia University, the University of Southern California, and Northwestern University are among institutions that have also seen applications to their programs increase. Gail Wiggins, the interim chair of the journalism department at North Carolina A&T University, told me that the department saw a 6 percent increase in enrollment from 2016 to 2017. North Carolina A&T requires incoming students to write about why they chose journalism as their course of study, Wiggins said. More and more students, she told me, write that ‘they want to tell their own stories … they want to provide truthful information to improve their communities.’ . . .”

• David Bauder, Associated Press: US newspapers to Trump: We’re not enemies of the people
• Harry A. Jessell, TVNewsCheck: Stations Need A Louder Voice For Free Press
• Los Angeles Times: The Times didn’t join the editorial fray, but readers wanted us to
• Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post Writers Group: Trump’s match, Jim Acosta

Rhetoric Aside, Inclusion in Hollywood Still Elusive

“The rhetoric in Hollywood may be changing when it comes to 
inclusion, but the numbers are not, according to a new study out today on diversity in top-performing movies,” Andreas Wiseman reported July 31 for Deadline: Hollywood.

“The report, from Professor Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, reveals that on-screen progress toward inclusion remains to
 be seen in popular movies with regard to females, underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, the LGBT
 community, and individuals with disabilities.

“The investigation examined 48,757
 characters in 1,100 ‘top films’ (the top 100 at the domestic box office each year) from 2007 to 2017. These are predominantly studio movies.

“Female speaking characters on screen filled just 30.6%
 of all roles across the 11-year time frame while less than 1% of all 
characters were from the LGBT community.

“The report provides an ‘invisibility analysis’ to determine how many movies are missing female
 characters from different groups. In 2017, 43 films did not include a black/African American female 
character while 65 were missing Asian or Asian American female characters, and 64 did not depict a single 
Latina character. Across 400 films from 2014 to
 2017, only one transgender character appeared on screen. . . .”

• Tristan Ahtone, High Country News: Journalism is less diverse than Hollywood — and Congress (July 27)
• Jennifer Ludden with Janet Yang, executive producer of the 1993 movie “The Joy Luck Club,” “Weekend Edition Saturday,” NPR (audio)
• Maureen Ryan, Hollywood Reporter: HBO Hits Important Milestone in Push for Behind-the-Scenes Inclusion (Aug. 10)

. . . At AAJA, ‘Nobody Wanted to Exit the Theater’

“I first saw Crazy Rich Asians at an advance press screening at a small, newish theater in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and let me tell you: I arrived a little anxious and skeptical,” Kat Chow wrote Tuesday for NPR’s Code Switch.

“If you’ve spent more than five minutes with me, you’ll know that I am predisposed to those two emotions. It did not escape me that the theater holding the press screening could be considered still another gentrifying force in rapidly changing Chinatown. The fact that I and the friend I brought were one of the few Asian-Americans in the theater also did not escape me.

“It concerned me. It distressed me.

“As soon as we plopped in our seats, my friend and I launched into a game that most people of color have been playing since we came out of our mothers’ wombs. I like to call it Count The Asians; maybe you call it Count The Black People, or Count The Latinx. The rule of the game is simple: You look around the room and begin tallying how many people look like you. It’s a game that is, in theory, a demographic census, but in practice, it’s a depressing exercise in owning yourself. . . .”

Chow also wrote, “I went to second press screening, with a nearly all-Asian-American audience this time, at a conference for Asian-American journalists [the Asian American Journalists Association]. To watch the movie with a group of people who have similar cultural reference points — who have been similarly deprived of seeing our own faces on the big screen — was a communal experience.

“The crowd broke into whoops when shirtless torsos appeared, and I swear the woman in front of me was swaying in her seat to the Cantopop songs that dotted the soundtrack.

“When Awkwafina, Ken Jeong and even Harry Shum Jr. appeared on-screen, there were shouts of acknowledgment, like people were seeing old friends for the first time in years.

“The cheers lasted through the credits, and it seemed that nobody wanted to exit the theater, like we didn’t want to leave this moment behind.

“Still, I couldn’t help but think back to my first time seeing it. As my friend and I had walked out of the theater and into the streets of Chinatown, she turned to me. She had cried through much of the movie, having felt that it was the first time something close to her experience as a Chinese-Malaysian had been represented.

” ‘I felt so seen,’ she said. . . .”

• Cary Chow, the Undefeated: Is ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ the Asian ‘Black Panther’?
• Jiayang Fan, New Yorker: How to Watch “Crazy Rich Asians” Like an Asian-American
• Douglas Kim, Washington Post: ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ is more than Asian enough
• Ashley Lee, bustle.com: How Seeing ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ With An All-Asian Audience Made Me Appreciate The Movie Even More
• Shirley Leung, Boston Globe: We waited a long time for a movie like ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ — and that’s too bad

Pentagon Spokeswoman Accused of Misusing Staff

“One of Defense Secretary James Mattis’ most senior civilian advisers is being investigated by the Defense Department Office of Inspector General for allegedly retaliating against staff members after she used some of them to conduct her personal errands and business matters, according to four sources familiar with the probe,” Barbara Starr reported Wednesday for CNN.

“Dana White, the Trump administration political appointee who serves as the Pentagon’s chief spokeswoman, has been under investigation for several weeks after multiple complaints were filed against her.

“White is alleged to have misused support staff, asking them, among other things, to fetch her [dry cleaning], run to the pharmacy for her and work on her mortgage paperwork. Staffers also charge that she inappropriately transferred personnel after they filed complaints about her.

“White has not been found in violation of any federal regulation or policy at this point. The inspector general’s office declined to comment.

“As many as half a dozen defense personnel, and possibly more, have been interviewed, the sources say. . . .”

. . . Reporters Speak of Retaliation Over Stories

“The Pentagon’s top spokesperson was ostensibly seeking to make peace with the media when she headed down to the building’s press bullpen about three weeks ago for an off-the-record discussion on how to improve relations,” Jason Schwartz reported Thursday for Politico.

“But the meeting quickly grew combative, according to three people who were in the room. When reporters raised issues like vanishing access to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other top officials, Dana White pushed back by criticizing the accuracy of press corps members’ reporting.

“She made clear, according to the reporters present, that she was watching what they wrote and put on-air — with the implication that there would be repercussions for stories she and her staff did not like.

“White and the Pentagon’s press operation have already restricted access to briefings, interviews and travel with Mattis. But in recent weeks, several reporters said that they increasingly feel as though individual journalists are being retaliated against for stories they’ve written, losing yet more access. In one case this spring, officials pulled away a reporter’s plum opportunity to embed with U.S. troops overseas following a story they found too critical. . . .”

Writer Asks Honesty about ‘Racism’ Toward Whites

The “new white people jokes are so mean!” Chris Mohney, who is white, wrote Sunday for NBC Think. “Take, for instance, tech journalist Sarah Jeong, who recently joined the editorial board of the New York Times. It turned out she had previously posted tweets that make fun of white people in various ways, such as saying we ‘burn faster in the sun,’ making us akin to ‘goblins.’ She also notes how much she enjoys ‘being cruel to old white men,’ and claims we have appropriated the sport of lacrosse. . . .”

Mohney also wrote, “White people, even though we don’t like to admit it, know that racism isn’t just about who you like or don’t like. Racism has always been and always will be about possessing, maintaining and applying power.

“Racist jokes told by white people about non-white people superficially mock this or that alleged racial characteristic, just as Jeong’s tweets about white people did.

“But rhetorically, racist jokes are told to reassure white people about their top spot on the pyramid, and to reinforce that position by degrading nonwhite people who encounter such jokes.

“In contrast, as should be obvious to anyone reading them, Jeong’s tweets vented the collective frustration of everyone else struggling on that pyramid of institutional racism. The reason her tweets can be reversed into racist jokes is because racist jokes inspired them. ‘White people jokes’ intrinsically mock all the racist jokes, scientific treatises, magazine covers, and Founding Fathers’ statements about non-white people’s supposedly immutable inferiority, and point out how stupid they are and always were.

“Thus, white people getting mad — or publicly performing anger, at least — about white people jokes is actually white people getting mad about threats to white power. Threats like a woman of color joining the editorial board of the New York Times after telling smarter and funnier jokes than them on Twitter. Racism is a mechanism of maintaining an imbalance of power — making it literally impossible, by definition, to be racist against white people, or to tell a racist joke about a white person. . . .”

• David Beard, Poynter Institute: For journalists, is it time to delete your old tweets? (Aug. 6)
• Tom Kludt, CNN Money: New York Times stands by new hire amid Twitter backlash (Aug. 3)
• New York Times: Sarah Jeong Joins The Times’s Editorial Board (Aug. 1)
• New York Times: Statements in Response to Criticism of the Hiring of Sarah Jeong to the Editorial Board in Opinion (Aug. 2)
• Jessica Prois, HuffPost Asian Voices: Sarah Jeong, New York Times Editorial Board Member, Has A Right To Be Angry (Aug. 3)

New Puerto Rico Death Toll Gets Scant Attention

“In the five days after the Puerto Rican government acknowledged that the death toll from Hurricane Maria was over 20 times higher than previously reported, cable news devoted scant coverage to the continuing problems in Puerto Rico’s ongoing recovery efforts,” Gabby Miller and Tyler Monroe reported Tuesday for Media Matters for America.

“On August 9, Puerto Rican officials acknowledged that the death toll from Hurricane Maria far exceeded the official count of 64 deaths. New numbers that were ‘quietly acknowledged in a report posted online’ suggest that it is likely more than 1,400 people died in the aftermath of the hurricane. The initial 64 number referred to people whose death was ‘directly caused’ by the storm, but it failed to include those who died due to indirect effects.

“Despite the staggering numbers revealed in the report, cable news devoted scant attention to the news. . . .”

• Emily Sullivan, NPR: Nearly A Year After Maria, Puerto Rico Officials Claim Power Is Totally Restored

O’Brien Turns Diversity Question Back on CNN

“Former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien landed a solid hit on the network Monday, after the CNN Politics Twitter account shared a story about diversity within the Trump administration,” Caleb Howe reported Tuesday for Mediaite. “O’Brien turned the question back on CNN regarding their own leadership.

“ABC’s Jon Karl asked White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway about the topic on Sunday, following President Trump‘s public feud with former confidante Omarosa Manigault.

“ ‘Who is the most prominent, high level adviser to the president on the West Wing staff right now?’ he asked. Conway did not have a name.

‘”The CNN Politics tweet on the subject said ‘President Donald Trump has no black people in the senior White House staff.’ O’Brien turned it back and asked about CNN’s own diversity in leadership roles, and for that matter in cable news overall.

“CNN did not reply to her tweet.

“A list of CNN’s top leadership is available online here. [Here] are the names and faces . . . .”

• Wayne Bennett, the Field Negro: From Truman to trump.
• Jarvis DeBerry, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune: Omarosa herself proves Donald Trump’s disdain for black people
• Ed Mazza, HuffPost: Don Lemon Reveals The Sad Reality About Trump’s Alleged ‘N-Word’ Tape
• Ken Meyer, Mediaite: Charles Blow: If Trump’s N-Word Tape is Real, ‘It Might Actually Increase His Support’
• EJ Montini, Arizona Republic: Donald Trump’s fans wouldn’t care if he used the N-word, and Congress would do nothing
• Rebecca Shapiro, HuffPost: Anderson Cooper Uses Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Own Words Against Her After N-Word Dodge

Short Takes

• 

  “Helen Aguirre Ferré, one of the most prominent Latinos serving in the White House, has left her job as director of media affairs,” Luis Alonso Lugo reported Aug. 9 for the Associated Press. “White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Thursday that Aguirre was taking up a new position as director for strategic communications and public affairs at the National Endowment for the Arts. . . .” Yamily Habib reported Thursday for Al Día in Philadelphia, “During Aguirre’s tenure, the White House deactivated the Spanish version of its website, and communication with other Latino communication platforms has been scant, reduced to specific groups such as Latinos for Trump and pro-Republican media. . . .”

• “Several public radio newsrooms are putting data behind evaluations of whether diversity in their sourcing — or a lack of it — perpetuates stereotypes or presents truthful journalism,” April Simpson reported Thursday for current.org. “KUT in Austin, Texas, along with Philadelphia’s WHYY, Seattle’s KUOW and San Francisco’s KQED, are all engaged in efforts to gather and analyze data on their sourcing in news reports or show segments. The work involves logging the race, gender and role of the interviewees and the stories they appear in. . . .”
• “Is the so-called ‘whitelash’ over?” Adrian D. Pantoja, a senior analyst with Latino Decisions and professor of politics at Pitzer College, asked Monday in reporting on a Latino Decisions survey of attitudes toward immigration. “The results . . . suggest that is indeed the case as White voters have softened their positions on immigration. Across the selected immigration questions, White attitudes, with some small variations, mirror those of Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans. Had the results shown immigration attitudes to be highly polarized then it would make sense for Republican congressional candidates to follow Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign strategy. . . .”
• Columbia Journalism Review offered more on the telephone conversation between Hugo Balta, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and Marty Baron, editor of the Washington Post, over the story “White, and in the Minority.” Alexandria Neason wrote Thursday, “the conversation went from being about critiques of a single story to something more fundamental, in Balta’s view. Having a diverse newsroom is a success, Balta argued, but the use of those perspectives and talents in shaping stories, not merely headcounts, offer the ultimate litmus test for inclusion. The editor of the article at hand, Baron said, was not Latino. By way of argument, Balta replied, ‘I would not propose I am the best person to say with authority what is right or wrong’ in a story about African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or people who belong to the LGBTQ community. . . .”

• 

  “Ahora Sí, the American-Statesman’s weekly Spanish-language newspaper, will cease publication Oct. 11, the company said Thursday,” Gary Dinges reported Aug. 9 for the Austin, Texas, news organization. “The announcement came at the same time the Statesman announced all its 200-plus employees would be eligible to take a voluntary severance package. Staffers who take the voluntary severance package would depart the newspaper next month, the company said. . . .”

• Laura Washington, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, political analyst for Chicago’s WLS-TV, and former editor and publisher of the Chicago Reporter, and Ida B. Wells, the investigative journalist and anti-lynching crusader who died in 1931, were among the first honorees in the new Chicago Women’s Journalism Hall of Fame. Five women were inducted on Wednesday.
• “Indian Country Today has a new fellowship for journalists to join our staff from one to three months,” editor Mark Trahant announced on the site Thursday. “We are looking for editors, reporters and producers who now work for tribal media (radio stations, video stations or programs, newspapers, or magazines). The idea is you will work for us for a few weeks and your stories would be posted by Indian Country Today (as well as your tribal media outlet). The idea is to gain experience in Washington, reporting first-hand about how public policy is developed and how it impacts a tribal community. Then you will return to your regular job with new contacts and skills. Fellows will receive a stipend, including roundtrip airfare to Washington. . . .”
• “Netflix will not release a documentary celebrating the musical career of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam who is notorious for his history of anti-Semitic comments,” Amanda Svachula reported Aug. 1 for the New York Times. “It appeared that ‘The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: My Life’s Journey Through Music,’ would be available for streaming on Netflix on Aug. 1, according to a now-deleted Monday Twitter announcement from Mr. Farrakhan’s account. . . .” The decision “isn’t really about the movie not being seen. It is about a relentless campaign to smear, isolate and destroy a man who has devoted his life to Black people and the cause of freedom, justice and equality,” Richard B. Muhammad wrote Aug. 7 in the Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s newspaper.
• “Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe made a reasonable decision to charge Michael Drejka with manslaughter in last month’s deadly Clearwater convenience store parking lot confrontation,” the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times editorialized Monday. “The shooting, which erupted over use of a handicap parking space, took the life of Markeis McGlockton, a father of three, and shocked the community. But prosecutors still will have a high hurdle to overcome in showing that Drejka is not immune under Florida’s stand your ground law, which leaves too much chance for unwarranted killings to go unpunished. It’s a case study in why stand your ground has to go. . . .”

• 

  “It’s been a year since I traveled to Baton Rouge to support a series of reforms to reduce the incarceration rate in Louisiana,” singer-songwriter John Legend wrote Monday in the Washington Post. “Many of those reforms — such as the overhaul of the state’s parole system and modifications to sentencing for less serious offenses — have already proved effective. But the work is far from over. Still lingering in the state’s constitution is a 120-year-old measure put in place to suppress the rights of African Americans: non-unanimous juries. Louisiana is one of only two states — the other is Oregon — in which a person can be convicted of a felony and sent to prison without a unanimous vote of the jury. As a result, Louisiana prosecutors do not truly have the burden of proving their case ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ . . .”

• “In many ways, [Donald] Trump is the white Marion Barry,” Juan Williams, political analyst for Fox News Channel, wrote Monday for the Hill. Williams explained, “As a young reporter for the Washington Post covering the corrupt administration of D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, I knew what it meant to be targeted by a powerful politician. Barry and his supporters trashed my reputation in D.C.’s black community, casting me as a sellout working for a white paper. I got calls telling me not to start my car and reminding me where my children went to school. . . .” Williams decried “President Trump’s current thuggish efforts to intimidate reporters.”
• “Black Public Media announced application details Monday for the new Jacquie Jones Memorial Scholarship Fund,” Dru Sefton reported Tuesday for Current.org. “The scholarships are named for the Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and former BPM executive director, who died in January at age 52.  Sefton also wrote, “Applicants will vie for grants ranging from $20,000 to $100,000 to support non-fiction shorts, feature length programs, web series, 360-VR (virtual reality) or podcasts. . . . . Deadline is Sept. 30. For more information, visit BPM’s website. . . .”
• “Nichole Cyprian is the next news director for Raycom’s WALB in Albany, GA,” Rick Gevers reported Aug. 6 on his television news website, citing a memo from Jim Wilcox, [PDF] vice president and general manager. “It’s a promotion for Nichole, who’s been the Assistant ND for the past year. . . .”
• Tracie McKinney gets her first news director position at the Scripps’ owned ABC affiliate, KTNV-TV in Las Vegas, Rick Gevers reported Sunday for his television news website. “She’s been the interim ND since [Mike Dello Stritto] left in June to become ND for KOVR/KMAX-TV in Sacramento. Tracie most recently was the Assistant ND at Scripps’ WXYZ-TV in Detroit. . . . “
• “Brent Lewis of The Washington Post will join a team of editors on the Business Desk, assigning visual coverage of technology, the economy and industry as well as enterprise stories for The Upshot, write [director of photography] Meaghan Looram and  [picture editor] Beth Flynn,” the New York Times reported on Aug. 6.
• In Dallas, “Legendary WFAA anchor John McCaa is retiring and he says it’s not easy,” Stephanie Tsoflias Siegel reported Aug. 7 for TVSpy. She also wrote, “McCaa said he will retire in 2019 to spend more time with his wife, Nora, after 35 years at the Tegna-owned station in Dallas. . . .”
• “The WBZ-TV family has suffered a deep loss,” Boston’s WBZ-TV reported Aug. 3. “Videographer Charles ‘Chuck’ Manning passed away Thursday night. He was 66. Chuck spent 38 years behind the camera at Channel 4 news before he retired less than a year ago. During that time Chuck had a front row seat to history, covering everything from breaking news, to politics, to special reports. . . .”
• “Two final-year students at Moi University in Kenya are aiming to empower Africans to tell their own stories, developing a platform for people to post content produced through mobile journalism,” Caroline Scott reported Aug. 10 for journalism.co.uk. “Having been inspired by a panel discussion on mojo at a MentorMe Project conference, Marvin Gakunyi and Emmanuel Yegon, students of communications and journalism, have built a 10-strong team of volunteers at university, who have been working as editors on the site since January. . . .” Yegon said, “Now we have ‘pocket studios’ — the smartphones — to tell our stories.”

• 

  “And as the world turns, so too does another instance of racism toward a black soccer player coming to light,” Ricardo A. Hazell reported Tuesday for the Shadow League. “Former English National team forward Ian Wright went into great detail about why he feels 23-year-old star Raheem Sterling is being targeted by the media. Sterling, the young star of Manchester City and member of the English National team, has faced mountains of criticism as of late. And Wright believes it’s because of racism. . . .”

• “Malaysia has repealed its ‘fake news’ law, the first country in the world to roll back such legislation,” Hannah Ellis-Petersen reported Friday for the Guardian. “The law was introduced in March by the previous prime minister Najib Razak, and was widely condemned at the time as an assault on free speech and a tool to muzzle critics from discussing scandals such as 1MDB. Najib is now facing up to 125 years in jail if found guilty of corruption. . . .”
• In Nigeria, “Samuel Ogundipe, the Premium Times reporter that was arrested on Tuesday has been granted bail on Friday morning by magistrate Abdulwahab Mohammed of the Kubwa Grade 1 Magistrate Court in Kubwa, Abuja,” Nwafor Sunday reported Friday for the Vanguard. “Mr. Ogundipe was arrested for refusing to disclose the source of his story. Recall that lawyers, concerned citizens, human activists and organizations have [since his unlawful arrest] demanded for his immediate release. . . .”

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